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We try hard to be environmentally conscious with our entire
lives. This includes the building of the Spiderhollow from design &
concept through living with and around our shy acre of environmental influence.
***Anytime you re-use or
re-cycle a product rather than buying new, you help the environment. You
extend the benefits of the product rather than encouraging more energy to be
spent creating a new product. The carbon energy used to produce that
re-used product has already been spent whereas if you buy New - you are the end
consumer & initiator of more carbon energy adding to the worlds carbon energy
disbursement .
Re-cycling or re-use of any product reduces your carbon
footprint.
I am quite proud in feeling we made the effort and tried where
we could. We do have areas that we can improve, and will continue to
investigate improvements and hope to continue to enhance our best use and lowest
impact on the environment. Many of the things we did were financially
rewarding yet still an environmental benefit because we did many things
ourselves rather than paying for professionals to do them. This reduced
the spreading of carbon energy use and usually we were able to use common tools
and products rather than outsourcing to commercial or professionals to get
something done.
At this point I am not sure how to structure the big picture,
so I am going to simply start by making a list of environmental elements, uses,
or situations. Later, I hope to analyze the list and figure out a way to
do a layout and display of the information. If you have any ideas of how I
can do that, please let me know your suggestions.
A = Estimated Average Carbon number value for
the described situation is 100.
U = Used % of that 100 Carbon number value we actually USED for the
described situation.
| Category |
Description |
A |
U |
| Recycle |
Purchased older established land to re-use instead of
clearing a new plot or purchasing cookie cutter home. |
100 |
50 |
| Recycle |
Purchased a used kit of building material; 5,600
lineal feet of Cedar Sing logs - instead of purchasing new building
materials. (Exterior walls & Interior perimeter walls). This
would have been a huge carbon energy savings, however, I had to expend much
energy and used lots of sandpaper and electricity to fix or re-finish all
the Logs.
(Opposite would be to purchase standard dimensional lumber for framed
building including exterior/interior covering & finishing) |
100 |
50 |
| Economy |
Building plans designed and drawn by Roy Harvey
(Opposite would be paying an architect, designer, or buying cookie cutter building plans) |
100 |
10 |
Recycle
Economy |
We did have to cut 4 trees for the footprint of our
house. We planned the location to reduce the tree cutting as much as
possible and have left several trees in extremely close proximity to the
house. At the same time we did have to cut 3 other trees due to
disease. We hired a portable Saw Mill to mill those trees into usable
building material to help recycle/reuse the material. We used the lumber
throughout the building process which reduced the amount of lumber we would
need to purchase new. We also transplanted much of the ground cover
within the footprint area instead of destroying it. |
100 |
20 |
Recycle
Economy |
Had to demolish 2 outbuildings for the footprint.
We re-used 80% of the lumber from the out buildings in many places of the building process which
reduced the amount of lumber we would need to purchase new. |
100 |
50 |
| Energy |
Using the Sing Logs provided 5" of solid Cedar plus 3"
expanded foam for insulation. We achieved a high R value at a minimum
cost due to the Cedar Log thickness and encapsulation of the expandable
foam. In addition, using the Cedar Sing Logs made it so we did Not
need any "finish" materials on the outside or the inside of all perimeter
walls. No siding, sheetrock, nothing more needed to be added to the
finish of the structure.
(Opposite would require more intensive insulation, and much finish material
& products.) |
100 |
20 |
| Conservation |
We installed rain barrels to capture and re-use rain
water. Although this concept works it isn't providing as much gain as
I had envisioned. The 50 gallon rain barrels fill up extremely fast in
our Seattle rains. Although redistributing the water works, it is
usually so rainy that redistribution is only a viable process during 2-3
months in summer. Visually, the rain barrels we used look cool - they
are big oak wine casks and we use rain chains from the roof to collect the
rain water.
(Opposed process is rain gutters dumping onto the ground.) |
100 |
50 |
Recycle
Economy |
All the concrete work was done by us: My neighbor
was in charge of all the concrete work. We re-used lumber from the
outbuildings and re-used old form boards or cut them from outbuilding
plywood for all the footing and stem wall forms. All the stakes, lots
of support braces, piling blocks, hangers & holders were all re-used lumber.
Friends helped pour all the cement as well as do all the cement finish
work.
(Opposite would be to hire a contractor to have all the work done) |
100 |
30 |
| Energy |
50% of the lighting in the house is using fluorescent
power saving bulbs |
100 |
50 |
| Energy |
Wired the house with 12/2 wire - thicker, more costly,
but less electrical loss and better overall performance. The benefits
were probably a wash. |
100 |
100 |
Recycle
Economy |
Interior Stairs and many Decorative finish pieces were
made from the trees we cut. |
100 |
25 |
Recycle
Economy |
When demolishing the Trailer we Recycled any Metals,
saved good fixtures to pass on and pulled as much wood out of the debris to
use as firewood instead of taking to the dump or landfill |
100 |
50 |
Recycle
Economy |
Purchased 1/2 the doors from yard sales and purchased
many feet of assorted lumber from a yard sale to be used on all the window
casings, sills, supports, etc. 1X2, 2X2, 1X4, 1X6, 1X8, 1X12, 2X6, 2X8 |
100 |
50 |
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| Energy, Recycle, Economy |
We drive Diesel vehicles - Both use Home Cooked
bio-diesel and one runs on straight vegetable oil. See
Grease4Fuel.com |
100 |
30 |
| |
Garden out back provides some fresh groceries, healthy
labor. |
100 |
90 |
| |
In addition we are avid Composters and Recyclers.
(we put 1 small garbage can out for pickup Once per month. The rest of
the neighbors put out 1 or more large cans each week. |
100 |
40 |
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